Manage Photos on the Galaxy Tab 3 Using the Gallery App

Along with the ability to capture images, and the convenience of transferring images from other sources, your Galaxy Tab can store and showcase thousands of photos. Lonzell Watson showcases the pre-installed Gallery app and discusses how it offers a more robust photo and video management system than the Image Viewer.

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While Image Viewer provides a quick and easy way to review the photos that you have just taken in the Camera app, the pre-installed Gallery app offers a more robust photo and video management system. The Gallery app has similar options to Image Viewer for viewing and sharing content, but also has many more features that can help you manage a large library of images.

In Gallery, you can organize your photos and videos using albums, as well as sort your entire collection by location, time, person, or group, or designate your favorite shots (see Figure 1). Your Galaxy Tab 3 also conveniently enables you to make some basic photo edits without having to use a third-party photo-editing application.

Sorting Photos and Videos

The Gallery app icon is the framed image of a yellow flower (see Figure 2). By default, you can access the Gallery icon on the third Home screen by flicking the main/default Home screen twice from right to left, or you can access it from the Apps menu. The Gallery app icon also appears on the lock screen, so that all you have to do is flick it upward on screen to launch the program.

When you first open Gallery, you find that content has automatically been arranged in categories/albums. If you have downloaded videos to your Tab, such as video podcasts or recorded videos, or transferred images from your computer, they are in here, too. You can tap the camera icon located in the top-right corner of the screen to access the Camera feature from within Gallery.

Tap the default Albums menu to sort and display your photos and videos in a variety of ways. The name of this particular menu changes, depending on the last sorting method you had selected. Select any of the following sorting options so that you can filter only the images you want to review (see Figure 3):

Tap Timeto group photos based on the time they were captured.

Tap Locations to arrange photos based on their GPS location.

Tap Person to arrange photos based on pictures in which a face was detected.

Tap Group to display photos based on the contact group of the person in the picture.

Tap Favoritesto view all photos and videos you have marked as a favorite. You will see how to designate a photo as a favorite in just a moment.

Organizing Photos Using Albums

Not only can you transfer photo albums you have created on your computer to your Galaxy Tab 3, but also you can also quickly create new albums directly on your device. The process is very similar to creating a playlist with the Music Player app, in that you tap to initiate a new album, give the new album a name, and then select the photos from the library that you want to include in the album (see Figure 4).

To create a new album, tap the menu button located to the left of the Home button on your Tab’s body and choose New Album. Name the album, and then tap OK. The layout of the screen automatically changes to display all albums on your Tab in a list on the left side of the screen, and the contents of each album display to the right. The new album appears empty at the very top left of the list of albums and reads “Drag here.” All you need to do now is drag photos from the right side of the screen and drop them on the empty, new album. Simply tap a different album in the list to view its content and drag more photos. The new album remains static at the top when you select other albums. When you are finished dragging all of the photos that you want, tap Done at the top of the screen. Gallery now gives you the option to place a copy of the original photos into the new album or actually move the items from the original album.

You can rename the albums that you create by pressing your finger on an album and holding it there until a green checkmark appears in the upper-righthand corner. After the checkmark appears, tap the menu button located to the left of the Home button on your Tab’s body and choose Rename from the options.

Designating, Sharing, and Showcasing Images

Tap a photo within an album to open it full-screen, and then tap the screen to reveal more Gallery options located at the top of the screen. Thumbnails of all of the media contained within the album appear at the bottom of the screen. The thumbnails at the bottom are scrollable, so all you have to do is flick and tap a new image to display it full-screen.

Use the following options located at the top of the screen to perform these common tasks: favorite a photo, share photos, create a slideshow, delete images, tag photos, assign a photo to a contact, or use it as wallpaper (see Figures 5 and 6):

Tap the icon that is in the shape of a star to favorite a photo. Now, the next time that you filter for Favorites in your library, the image displays.

The next icon that appears in this list is contingent upon the last option you chose in the ShareVia menu. By default, the Bluetooth option is displayed here. So the next time you want to share a specific image, you don’t have to dig through a menu for that option.

Tap the Slideshow icon to preview each image in the current album as a Slideshow. After you select Slideshow, you have the option of going into the Slideshow settings and customizing the Effect/transitions, Music, Speed, and Sort/order for the presentation.

Tap the icon that looks like a trashcan to delete the current image displayed.

Editing Photos

Your Galaxy Tab 3 enables you to make some basic photo edits without having to use a third-party photo-editing application. You can improve some photos by performing simple edits such as left and right rotations and cropping. For more options, you can search the Google Play Store for other third-party applications such as Photo Editor and many more apps that are robust. Since Photo Editor has a spot in the Gallery menu, we will discuss it in just a few moments. For now, rotating and cropping images in Gallery is extremely simple.

Tap an image within an album to make it full-screen, and then tap the menu button located to the left of the Home button on your Tab’s body. Choose Rotate Left to rotate the current photo counterclockwise 90 degrees. Choose Rotate Right to rotate the current photo clockwise 90 degrees.

You can perform a basic photo edit, such as cropping, right on the device, which makes it easy for you to further define your photographic subject. You can crop a photo in no time and make huge improvements to photos that were less than perfectly framed.

When you tap Crop, a blue overlay appears in the center of the photo. Drag each side of the blue overlay to designate which parts of the image you want to keep (see Figure 7). You can cancel any edit that you make by simply tapping X Cancel located at the top-right of the screen. If you like the edit, select Done. When you crop an image, a new copy is made that reflects the edits you have performed. The original captured image is untouched.

The Photo Editor app may be what you are looking for if you are in need of a more advanced toolset of photo editing options. When you tap the Edit option in the Gallery menu, if you have not previously downloaded the Photo Editor app, a popup message informs you that Photo Editor is not installed on your device. You are then given the option to download the app from the Google Play Store. Photo Editor has a simple touch and pinch-to-zoom interface that allows you to tweak photos until you get them just right. You can even edit photos from within the Camera app as well as Gallery.

Some of the key features you'll get with Photo Editor are the ability to adjust colors using a curve interface, add effects, rotate, crop, resize, frame, clone, add text and other images, and also draw on your photos.

Summary

The Gallery app provides a very basic toolset that enables you to manage your photos and perform basic photo tweaks on your Tab, right out of the box. There are many more third-party photo editors and managers on the market with plenty more features to offer in terms of photo manipulation and showcasing options.

You may not find all that you are looking for in just one app. I personally use a series of dedicated photo editing apps, and then look for unique ways to present them through other apps. Browse the Google Play Store, check out the ratings, read reviews, and test-drive a few apps until you find one or more that’s best for you.